


hold the weight of my soul (i'm letting go)

by justbecauseyoubelievesomething



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Implied poverty, Minor Character Death, Reunions, Rich girl!Clarke, Summer Romance, lots of gratuitous star metaphors, nerd!bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29046915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbecauseyoubelievesomething/pseuds/justbecauseyoubelievesomething
Summary: When Clarke is eight years old, she kisses the boy next door behind the tool shed in his backyard. His name is Bellamy and his nose is decorated with freckles like stardust. He tastes like dirt because they were eating radishes straight from the garden early in the day and Clarke imagines that her lips taste of earth for weeks afterwards.//A Bellarke January Joy fic
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 14
Kudos: 77





	hold the weight of my soul (i'm letting go)

**Author's Note:**

> A few days after my scheduled posting date, due to some personal reasons, but here is my Bellarke January Joy 2021 contribution! This fic is heavily inspired by [Summer of the Not-Quite-Seen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26632783) by the fantastic [elle_stone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_stone/pseuds/elle_stone)! The summer vibes were something I wanted to try to capture in my own words, so here we are! The title is taken from Tongue Tied by Beta Radio. Hope you guys enjoy!

When Clarke steps out of the elevator, suitcase clenched firmly in one fist, thin coat draped elegantly over the other arm, it doesn’t quite feel like the goodbye she imagined. The doorman graciously nods and gives her the barest hint of a smile; the cold, professional sort that everyone in the city excels at. Clarke trades unfeeling smiles with him as he takes her luggage. She’s an expert now too, after all.

The double glass doors sweep open before her and the heavy summer heat rushes up to meet her, bleeding off the dark asphalt streets in thick, noxious fumes. Her heels click across the pavement, following the heavier footfalls of the doorman as he loads her suitcase into the trunk of her waiting convertible. The late afternoon sunlight filters between the staggered skyscrapers around them, gleaming across the yellow finish on her car and catching at the subtle diamonds sparkling against her ears.

The doorman slams the trunk closed and opens the driver’s side door for her with another calm sweeping hand motion.

“We’ll be missing you, Ms. Griffin.”

She almost turns towards him. Almost searches his face for any hint of truthfulness behind his words.

She bites her lip and slides into the car instead.

“Thank you.”

It’s not quite rush hour yet, giving her a fast and convenient exit through the usually busy downtown area. Her penthouse apartment catches her eye in the rearview, mirrored walls of glass winking in the approaching twilight, before finally vanishing around a corner.

She lets out a long breath and feels the slightest twinge of tension fall away from her shoulders and the base of her neck. Not all of it. Not by a long shot. But it’s a start.

The setting sun chases her from the city, long flaming rays laying a path through the busy highways and across the teeming bridge over the Arkadia River before guiding her out into the countryside. She keeps the convertible top down, her hair streaming behind her in long blond ribbons. The summer twilight descends as the sound of cicadas begins to rasp louder than the gentle drone of her radio. The tall grasses flash by on either side as traffic thins out and Clarke allows herself a grin. A real one.

And cranks the radio.

  
  


When Clarke is eight years old, she kisses the boy next door behind the tool shed in his backyard. His name is Bellamy and his nose is decorated with freckles like stardust. He tastes like dirt because they were eating radishes straight from the garden early in the day and Clarke imagines that her lips taste of earth for weeks afterwards.

In the summertime, at her father’s country cottage, the boy next door is the best way to spend her time. Bellamy takes her swimming in the lagoon, their toes squishing in the slime and mud under the still water. Clarke is impressed that he can open his eyes underwater without borrowing her snorkel mask. Bellamy laughs at her, but it’s not unkind. It’s warm.

Bellamy teaches her about rabbit tracks along the creek bank, the long toes outlined in the damp earth. They lay on their stomachs under the gooseberry bushes and watch the mother rabbit nose at a hole in the ground and Clarke hides her gasp of surprise between her fingers when the pink-white baby rabbits peep their heads out in response.

Clarke buys Bellamy a disposable camera for his birthday and he carries it everywhere, bouncing off a lanyard around his neck. He snaps pictures all summer; flitting birds with bright red underbellies, butterflies delicately perched on thin twigs, Clarke with a frog cupped between her crossed legs. When they print the pictures, Clarke pins them across her bedroom wall. A kaleidoscope of summer as seen through Bellamy’s eyes.

Bellamy teaches Clarke how to walk along the top of the stone wall that borders their yards. It’s easier with no shoes on, he tells her with a teasing grin just before he tosses her designer brand tennis shoes into the garden. She chases him across the wall, the uneven cement warm and slightly gritty under her toes. She wobbles and throws her arms out wide to keep her balance, the ground suddenly seeming a hundred miles away. She sways and then steadies, Bellamy’s hand warm under her palm.

“You okay, princess?”

She squeezes his hand softly, confused by how fast her heart is beating. “I’m okay.”

The wall is a strange divide; a line between two worlds. From each side it looks the same; dark, grey stones, broken off and jagged in places along the top. But on Clarke’s side, the cottage is a pale, picturesque cream with blood red shutters that look like something from a storybook. The old oak tree in the front yard stretches its limbs over the grass, inviting them to lie in the shade. The flowerbeds are full of tulips, Abby Griffin’s prized hobby. Her father’s bright yellow convertible sits like an oversized toy in the gently curved driveway.

Bellamy’s house is short and grey, paint peeling from around the doorways and window frames. The maple trees that dot the property drop too many leaves in the fall and block too much sun in summer, leaving the grass scraggly underfoot. The wooden gate in the front yard swings precariously from one hinge, always threatening to smack the unwary visitor in the back as they leave.

Clarke loves it. It feels sharp and clear. It feels free.

She loves climbing through the tree limbs with Bellamy, rough bark cutting the thin skin of her palms. She loves the rough, churned up dirt of the garden under her fingernails as they dig for worms to go fishing. She loves the squirrels that run rampant across his roof and squeeze through invisible holes to get into the attic, much to his mother’s chagrin.

And when the stars come out one night and Bellamy climbs up on the roof of the tool shed and points out constellations to her, each one with a story that whisks her away on a new adventure, she decides that she loves Bellamy.

So she leans in and kisses him. Her first kiss.

More to the point, he kisses her back.

And runs his fingers nervously through his curly, dark hair before softly touching her cheek.

“See you tomorrow?”

She laughs. Giddy. Joyous even.

“See you tomorrow.”

She doesn’t know it’s a lie. If she did, she never would have said it.

  
  
  


The old country house is a mere shadow as Clarke pulls into the driveway. Or a ghost maybe.

She turns off the radio and lets the silence linger as her headlights flicker off. The sounds of summer evening slowly creep closer until it feels like she hasn’t disturbed the night at all. The frogs croak gently from the lagoon a half mile in the distance; soft bubbles of sound against the harsher whir of cicadas from the tree overhead. The grass rustles almost imperceptibly. Longer than she remembers.

She finally steps out of the car, the weight shifting with a slight creak of the old convertible. The door slams behind her and it feels familiar, but still jarring. She hesitates for a moment and then on a whim, kicks her pumps off and tosses them into the back seat. The driveway is still warm under her bare feet and she sways for a moment, eyes half closed, drinking in the feeling.

The cottage is still a pale cream, but the shutters have been repainted to a dark evergreen. The muted colors feel appropriate as she pads up to the front door and turns the key in the lock. Takes a breath. And swings the door open.

The empty room takes her breath away, but not in the way she’d anticipated. Dust lies in the chips and cracks of the floor and swirls against the thin moonlight coming in through the door. The open kitchen across the room is quiet and empty as well, the digital clock over the stove blinking a mindless reading of 12:00 without changing.

She tiptoes forward, unwilling to disturb the restful sleep of the house. Her fingers dance along the bannister as she takes the stairs one at a time, careful of the one that still creaks. The bedrooms sit with doors wide open on either side of the upstairs hallway and she resists the urge to respectfully close each one as she passes.

Her old bedroom sits at the very end of the hall and when she steps in it’s another soft jolt of pain in her chest. A flash of color dances in her memory, a wall full of summertime pictures. She reaches towards the wall and then stops with a frown when she sees the pin holes are gone. Painted over.

She’s not sure why it freezes her, but she stands still, staring at the blank wall, bare soles rocking back and forth unconsciously against the dirty floorboards. Painted in moonlight from the curtainless window.

Suddenly the air feels stifling. The walls too close.

Clarke staggers forward and with a few stiff jerks manages to raise the window, letting in damp evening air. The smell of rain somewhere in the distance calms her and stops her head from swirling too much as she leans against the sill. The oak leaves dance against the rooftop nearby, thin branches longer than the last time she was here. The soft tapping along the shingles is familiar and yet unfamiliar too. 

She expected memories to be painful. She expected to see them everywhere. To see her dad everywhere. 

Clarke stares down at the convertible in its usual place in the drive and waits for the gut-wrenching pain to follow, but instead she blinks and sees a curly headed boy dashing across the lawn and launching himself onto the tire swing. She sees a blond girl with a wide grin that feels foreign now, scuffing her bare toes to climb up the border wall and biting her lip in concentration as she balances along the top. Clarke blinks again and there’s nothing but grass waving in the breeze.

Not the memories she expected at all.

She’s struck with a sudden urge to feel the bite of the wall stones under her toes and she slams the window shut. The stairs groan under her footsteps as she takes them two at a time back downstairs. The outside feels better than the inside, the old tree waving at her and the stars winking at her.

She hoists herself up to the top of the wall easily and allows herself a chuckle at how much taller it seemed as a child. The edges of her slacks brush against the rough stonework and she pauses to roll them up to her knees before carefully spreading her arms for balance. One foot in front of the other. 

_ “Just like a balance beam, princess.” _

She closes her eyes against the unasked for memory.

_ “I can do it!” _

“I can do it,” she whispers again. Two more steps. Then two more. Then another three.

She’s walking along the edge of the Blakes’ old garden and it’s pleasantly surprising to see that there are rows of tomato plants and green beans, full and heavy. The maple trees are trimmed back and the grass looks brighter, even in the dark.

Something pings deep in her gut and she swallows the sadness again.

The boy next door digging both hands into the soft earth and pulling them up with a grin to show her the wriggling worms between his fingers. The boy next door reaching for her hand and leaving dirt smudges along her wrist.

She slowly sits and runs her fingers along her wrist, a ghost of a caress. She leans back carefully and tips her head back enough to see the stars. Constellations dancing in circles overhead. Bellamy’s nose against her shoulder as he whispers stories to her.

“I miss you.”

“Clarke?”

That’s not a memory.

Clarke jerks forward in response and slides painfully off the wall. She winces as she hears the sharp rip of her slacks against the stone and then she tumbles onto her hands and knees in the Blakes’ old yard.

“Clarke!”

Her heart is thudding like a ramrod against her ribs and there’s a lump in her throat big enough to keep her from talking. So instead she curls a little inward and pushes herself back to look up at the man approaching her with a flashlight in hand.

Freckles like stardust across the bridge of his nose.

“Clarke, is that you?”

  
  
  


When Clarke’s dad collapses, so does her life. There’s a helicopter that sets down in the field just outside the cottage and the thick sound of the blades slicing through the heavy air hums through every atom in her body.

Abby pulls her close and tucks her head into her chest, as if that will keep Clarke from seeing what’s happening. As if it will keep her from knowing that her father is dying in front of her.

The paramedics grab her father and pull him into the helicopter, but Abby and Clarke have to ride on the ground. Clarke sits in the backseat of her father’s yellow convertible in her pajama shorts and thin sleep shirt, goosebumps along her arms and she watches the helicopter soar overhead, back into Arkadia. There’s a sick, cold feeling sitting at the bottom of her stomach as she watches it leave. A cold acceptance that she won’t get to see her dad again.

She watches for Bellamy as her mother jumps in the car and speeds away. Watches for any sign of him. But the windows at his house are dark and if the boy next door is watching, fingertips pressed to the glass as he murmurs silent goodbyes, Clarke doesn’t get to know.

  
  
  


He’s looking at her with wide eyes and she’s staring back at him. The flashlight dangles limply from his hand, tiny white beam illuminating a small pale orb against the grass.

“Clarke…”

Something about the way he says her name, breathless and searching and just a little bit hopeful, breaks her out of the spell.

“I’m so sorry for um…” Clarke presses her weight back a little onto the palms of her hands and dampness from the soft ground seeps up against her fingers. “For um… trespassing?”

His gaze narrows and he tips his head slightly at her. She thinks he’s actually about to laugh.

“Trespassing?”

“Well… yes.”

His eyes gleam with something as he offers his hand and she reaches out to grab it. His fingers wrap firmly around her pulse point as he pulls her to her feet.

“Apology accepted.” His lips twitch softly at the corners and she finds herself smiling despite the state of her three hundred dollar slacks.

Bellamy clicks off the flashlight and for a moment, his face vanishes into nothing but a shadowy profile, the ends of his hair catching the muted starlight. Clarke’s chest grows tight as she blinks up at him. He still has the same hair.

Then her eyes adjust and she can make out the strong line of his jaw and the slope of his nose as he blinks back at her.

“Not to sound rude, but… what the hell are you doing here anyways?”

The question is so blunt, so Bellamy, that Clarke giggles before she can stop herself. Then a full throated laugh rolls up her throat and then she’s nearly doubled over with laughter. Bellamy is shaking next to her and she can hear the low catch of laughter in his chest. A bubbly warmth spreads through her stomach.

“I live next door.”

Bellamy’s laughter dies and he tips his head again, examining her carefully.

“You bought the house?”

There’s a lump in her throat the size of her fist again, so she only nods delicately.

Bellamy swallows, the indentation of his throat tensing with the slight motion. Clarke has to hold herself back from reaching out to trace the lines of his neck.

He tips his head a little as he glances back towards his own house. “I wanted to, but after I finally saved enough to buy this one back last year…”

His hands are fidgeting, the flashlight rolling between his fingers and tapping against his thigh. Before she can give herself time to think too much, Clarke reaches out and grabs his hand. His calloused palm rasps over her smooth skin sending shivers up her arm.

“Hey… It’s okay.”

Bellamy snaps his mouth shut and squeezes her hand lightly in response. Clarke smiles softly.

“I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to get a bid in on time. I’ve been waiting for the chance forever and hoping…”

She trails off as she realizes she’s still holding his hand. She takes a step back letting their hands drop.

Bellamy stiffens a little. “I’m sorry about your dad.”

Clarke inhales slowly, the thickness of her breath tugging at her throat.

Bellamy reaches up and fingers the long curls framing his left ear, gaze darting away from her face. “And I’m sorry I never got to say goodbye.”

She imagines him waiting for the girl next door to come back, week after week, year after year. Constellations sailing across the sky, marking the endless night.

“Me too,” she whispers. 

  
  
  


She’s not sure how they end up sitting on the wall again with a bottle of vodka passing back and forth between them, fingers tangling against each other with every hand off. Bellamy laughs at the way her hair keeps getting in her mouth until she snaps a hair tie off her wrist and bundles it back from her face. Clarke finds herself resting her hand against the side of his leg, pressing just slightly into the rough denim of his jeans. He offers her another drink.

The stars spin overhead and the evening noises settle into the deeper calm of late night. They talk about their old haunts, their old games and dreams. They don’t talk about anything that happened in between. He doesn’t ask about her dad and she doesn’t ask about his mom. 

For a few hours it’s just Bellamy and Clarke again; the softness of summer pressing protectively around the edges of their little bubble.

A lull falls over the conversation and Bellamy sighs. “What a pair we make, huh?”

Clarke presses her fingertips a little harder against his leg. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… look at us. Look at this.” He waves his hand vaguely towards the yard in front of them. “Did we really spend our whole lives stuck in the past? Trying to get back to this?”

Clarke hums thoughtfully. Her head is starting to spin and she leans against Bellamy’s shoulder to steady herself. “Kind of crazy, I guess.”

“Hmm… not crazy.” He’s looking down at her, she can tell by the way his breath stirs the soft flyaways around her temples. “A little pathetic, maybe?”

She scoffs, but a smile still creeps across her face. His shirt smells like the deodorant her dad used to wear and she half-expects it to send her spiraling, but it only makes her melt farther into his side.

“What’s wrong with chasing down memories?” she asks aloud. “Do you know how many people I knew in Arkadia that spent their whole lives chasing down stupid shit? Way more stupid than this.”

“You know a lot of people in Arkadia?”

He asks it casually, but Clarke feels the way his shoulder tenses under her cheek and she lifts her head for a moment to look him in the eye.

“Not like I know you.”

She catches the faintest glimmer of something in his gaze before he ducks his head.

“Oh.”

“Bellamy?”

He looks at her again. Hopeful and earnest.

“Yeah?”

“I’m not going to leave again.”

His brow furrows gently as he leans closer, searching her face. Clarke matches his stare, letting him look. Letting him know her like no one else ever has.

“You promise?” There’s a flash of desperation. A hint of a childhood wound still open and aching.

Clarke feels it too. The way they’ve been dancing around it all night, deftly avoiding the pitfall of pain. But she’s tired of dancing.

Bellamy reaches up and cups her face and she leans into his hand. She feels wobbly, like the wall is about to give out underneath her and the warmth of his hand is all that’s keeping her up.

_ “You okay, princess?” _

The stories always come full circle, following the orbit of the earth. That’s how stars work, after all.

Clarke reaches up and runs her fingers along Bellamy’s wrist, watching the way his lips part slightly and his gaze flickers.

“I promise.”

He pulls her into him for this kiss, searing the promise against her lips over and over and over as the stars grow faint and the edge of sunrise begins to burn away the night.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
